Behind Obama's About-Face on Syria

Jolted by Hezbollah's Entry Into Civil War and Chemical Weapons, Administration Chose to Arm Rebels

By

Adam Entous

Updated June 15, 2013 12:07 p.m. ET

The Obama administration tied its dramatic shift in favor of arming Syria's rebels to findings that chemical weapons had been used in the civil war—but the decision, according to people familiar with it, was the product of two months of increasingly unsettling assessments about the war that propelled the president to do something he had previously argued would be a mistake.

It was more than a week ago, according to American officials, that U.S. intelligence agencies reached their conclusion that 100 to 150 Syrians have been killed by chemical weapons. Thursday's public about-face in American policy toward Syria's two-year civil war was driven by other factors as well, according to these officials. These included growing U.S. concerns about large-scale battlefield deployment of militants from the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah—an appearance that alarmed Israel and caught the Americans by surprise—and President Bashar al-Assad's more recent battlefield gains.

Syrian rebel leaders remained deeply skeptical that the U.S. decision to arm them would tip the balance of the conflict unless the arms included anti-aircraft weapons. Nicholas Casey reports. Photo: Getty Images.

These findings capped a period that current and former American, European and Middle Eastern officials describe as a severe test of U.S. policy. It started in April and May, when European allies Britain and France presented skeptical U.S. officials with evidence that Mr. Assad had used chemical weapons against his people. It culminated in an emergency phone call a week ago in which a top rebel commander warned the administration that a "menacing" buildup of forces around Aleppo threatened to snuff out the rebel cause.

In one sobering moment in late April, Jordan's King Abdullah II presented President Barack Obama and aides with a bleak scenario for Syria—showing them a map of how the country could split into warring, sectarian fiefdoms, with a tract of desert dominated by al Qaeda and its allies, U.S. officials said.

Emerging from these accounts is a portrait of a president seeking to avoid what current and former officials call "the slippery slope" of another Middle Eastern war, but being pressured to do the opposite by irritated allies and the deteriorating situation on the ground. Growing U.S. confidence in the general who leads moderate rebel forces made the decision to provide arms possible, said White House officials.

The administration came under fire Friday over its decision from camps ranging from Syria to Russia to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who cast degrees of doubt on the chemical-weapons claims. Rebel fighters, meanwhile, suggested that the help was too little, too late.

"It's all talk," said an activist in Deraa province in Syria's southeast, adding that the U.S. vow to send arms came after nearly two years of rebel requests. "Until we see weapons in our hands here in Syria, they are just words floating in the air."

U.S. officials have offered few specifics on the program. President Obama's authorization, contained in a classified order, directs the Central Intelligence Agency to coordinate the arming of rebels. It wasn't clear if the U.S. would provide the arms directly or fund them, which arms would be included and precisely when they may arrive.

Syria in the Spotlight

Track the latest events in a map, see the key players and a chronology of the unrest.

On Thursday and Friday, rebels in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, said they fought some of their heaviest battles in months. A rebel defeat in Aleppo, a commercial hub of 3 million, would give the regime a stronghold in the country's north. It would also represent a symbolic victory, coming shortly after the regime captured the rebel center of Qusayr and made other ground gains after Hezbollah entered the battle in force on the regime's side.

Clashes intensified around the Minig military airport, an air base that is seen as a key to controlling the region and has been surrounded by rebels for months, said a rebel in the countryside to the north of the city. In Aleppo itself, fighters clashed in the eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, said an activist reached Friday evening in the city. Those contacted in Aleppo said fronts haven't shifted in the latest fighting.

While U.S. officials acknowledge that Hezbollah and regime forces are closing in on Aleppo, they believe there is time to train rebels and improve their defenses—with or without a no-fly zone, officials say—underscoring their belief the conflict is nowhere near a conclusion.

U.S. officials question whether U.S. and European arms alone will make a decisive difference in a country already awash in weapons. Rather, they say, the key will be U.S. and European efforts to step up training that would be centered in Jordan.

Thursday's moves marked a dramatic shift for Mr. Obama, who last year personally rebuffed a proposal to arm the rebels despite appeals from David Petraeus, then-director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Hillary Clinton, then-Secretary of State, say current and former officials. The administration cited concerns that arms could end up in the hands of Islamists, who are playing a decisive role in the fight against Mr. Assad. A CIA analysis at the time concluded that arming the rebels would do little to change the outcome on the ground, a view that was seen as affirming the approach of aides to Mr. Obama who opposed providing arms.

Mr. Obama had sought a new approach to aid the rebels earlier this year, according to the White House. But several officials attributed newfound attention to the issue to recent personnel changes, particularly on the White House National Security Council.

One key change involved Tony Blinken, who was a top aide last year to Vice President Joe Biden. During White House Situation Room meetings on Syria, Mr. Blinken frequently used the phrase, "Superpowers don't bluff," to underline his view that administration rhetoric can't outpace what the U.S. is willing to do.

ENLARGE

Members of the rebel Free Syrian Army ran to avoid sniper fire Thursday in Deir al-Zour, one of the battlegrounds in the two-year uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Reuters

In late January, Mr. Obama promoted Mr. Blinken to deputy national security adviser, a position that gave him day-to-day control over Syria deliberations. Mr. Blinken decided to revisit the proposals that were set aside last year, including arming the rebels, officials said.

In March, Britain began testing physiological samples from Syria for chemical weapons, and then started sharing the results with the U.S. and France. At the time, some U.S. officials were dismissive, saying the samples may have been tainted by rebels who want to draw the West into the conflict on their side.

In private talks with the Obama administration in the months before evidence of chemical-weapons use surfaced, senior British officials pressed the U.S. to do more in Syria. As test results came back positive, they seized on chemical weapons use as "the lever they were going to use" with Mr. Obama to try to spur action, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Some European officials privately complained that the Obama administration was slow to acknowledge chemical-weapons use because doing so would increase pressure on the U.S. to do more than it wanted. U.S. officials say Mr. Obama wanted to be certain about the evidence before responding, citing lessons from the Iraq war.

Starting in April, a procession of Arab leaders made their case on Syria directly to Mr. Obama and his top advisers. In meetings in Washington, King Abdullah said the U.S. should be "captain of the team"—to corral other Arab states which have been working at cross purposes by providing arms to different rebel groups.

Washington agreed on the importance of creating what officials called a "unified supply chain"—that would be used by the U.S., European allies and Middle Eastern states—to funnel support directly to Gen. Salim Idris, the top Syrian rebel commander backed by the West. The problem, officials said: Getting Qatar, a key supplier of arms, to go along with the plan. The Arab leaders were concerned that Qatar was bolstering the militant Al-Nusra Front, a claim Qatari officials have denied.

To try to make real the dangers for Mr. Obama, King Abdullah showed the White House, and later congressional officials, a map of a hypothetical future Syria, splintered along ethnic lines: an Alawite coastal strip; a Sunni-dominated area that officials said the king called "Sunnistan"; a Druze-controlled area near the border with Israel; a Kurdish zone in the northeast corner; and a large swath of Syrian desert abutting Anbar province in Iraq dominated by Islamists.

In meetings with officials from the White House and other departments, King Abdullah told policy makers that Syria would become similar to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, or FATA, where al Qaeda has long been based.

"Syria is going to become the new FATA, the breeding ground from where they launch attacks," the king said, according to a person in the meetings.

King Abdullah, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also argued to Mr. Obama that the U.S. was allowing three of its chief historic rivals in the Middle East—Iran, Russia and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah—to dominate the battlefield in Syria and help President Assad push back recent rebel gains. Mr. Assad's survival, they said, would tip the regional balance of power in Tehran's favor.

Qatar and Turkey have formed close alliances with Syrian rebel groups that are part of the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, conversely, have sought to build up Syrian rebels that are opposed to the Brotherhood's ideology, fearful the movement's gains could stir up unrest in their own monarchies.

By early May, U.S. intelligence agencies had observed what officials described as the first large-scale Hezbollah movements into Syria. At the time, the U.S. had seen units of Hezbollah fighters emerging in different parts of Syria with numbers ranging from 2,000 to 2,500. A U.S. official called these Hezbollah fighters "trained and battle-hardened," forcing U.S. intelligence agencies to increase their estimates on how long Mr. Assad can hold on to power.

Later in May, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee overwhelmingly approved legislation that calls for the U.S. to provide arms to moderate rebel fighters, adding to pressure on the White House to change course. About the same time, the chief of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite party backing the Syrian regime in a battle against rebels vowed to fight in Syria until victory.

After a two-week battle, forces loyal to Mr. Assad retook the strategic town of Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon.

Gen. Idris, his forces battered by a string of losses, spoke by phone last Saturday with Assistant Secretary of State Beth Jones, to raise alarm about the buildup of Hezbollah and regime forces around Aleppo, and about Mr. Assad's increased use of air power, U.S. officials said.

As the White House convened high-level meetings this week, Gen. Idris circulated to American officials a detailed list of the weapons that he said his forces needed for the battle in Aleppo. The list, reviewed by the Journal, included 200 Russian-made Konkurs antitank missiles and 100 shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons known as Manpads. He also asked for 300,000 rounds of Kalashnikov ammunition, 100,000 rounds of rifle ammunition and 50,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition.

Just before the White House decision, Gen. Idris told U.S. officials that he was skeptical Mr. Obama would really send arms, and that, at a minimum, Washington should at least provide him with high resolution satellite imagery that could help rebel forces identify Mr. Assad's positions.

Secretary of State John Kerry was among the most vocal supporters of arming the rebels, officials said.

In the run-up to the meetings, Mr. Kerry had voiced concerns to Mr. Obama's advisers about the risks of inaction in Syria, including the message that such a stance might send to Iran about the administration's seriousness about the "red lines" it has set on preventing that regime from building a nuclear bomb.

If the U.S. didn't step up to support the opposition, Mr. Kerry also raised concerns that U.S. partners in the region would hedge their bets and withdraw their support for the rebels, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Mr. Kerry argued that the U.S. needs to do something now.

In the weeks before the White House meetings, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was skeptical of arming the rebels, but officials say Mr. Hagel in the end supported that move. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper remained more cautious about the proposal, officials said.

"Qusayr and the prospect of Aleppo going down were the accelerators," said an adviser to the State Department.

An official close to the process said the White House debate has come full circle, except this time Mr. Obama succumbed to the "accumulation of pressures."

"They [the White House] were looking for something to do. But the president just didn't feel that he had anything he could work with," the official said of last year's deliberations over strengthening the opposition militarily without getting pulled into the conflict directly. "They wound up, ironically, at where they started—with this limited provision of arms through Jordan."

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.